Winston Aldworth: A homecoming far from home

A pub in the English village of Aldworth. Photo / Creative Commons image by Wikipedia user Colin Smith

I visited the town of Aldworth once.

It's a cracking spot. A beautiful wee English village where a few dozen little houses gather around the pub, whose doors open straight out on to the cricket field.

The pub is called The Bell and was built in 1340, shortly after Polynesian feet had first made their mark on the shores of New Zealand. If you're anything like average height, you'll have to duck under many of the door frames in The Bell Inn. Times have changed, people have grown - someplaces have stood beautifully still.

If you like a good pub, you'll love this one.

I told the woman running the bar I was an Aldworth - the laird returned to the manor, so to speak. They get a few travelling Aldworths drop into Aldworth, she told me, mostly from Canada. A couple of other drinkers wandered over to check me out. All friendly, mind you, nothing Deliverance-ish about it. Well, not much.

There are no Aldworths left living in Aldworth these days and, sadly, there was no mention of a vast inheritance waiting for a rightful Antipodean claimant. But I did get something.

She fished out an Aldworth cricket team sweatshirt for me (the lads were in the field while we were there), and invited me back to play for (or against, if I could round up 10 mates) the village team. I had to insist that she let me pay for my pint. Good people. A nosey up the family tree is the one trip that everyone should make.

In this week's Herald Travel, Ewan McDonald and Geoff Cumming journey to Scotland to explore their separate roots. They find the seeds of a feud between their clans that lives on.

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A CTO conference this week will look at the debate about marijuana tourism. It's tricky. They don't want to put off "straight" visitors, but they do want the best for their industry.